Manor Farm, East Runton

Manor Farm is a working family farm with crops and animals – its seven luxury cottages, once traditional farm buildings.

Sensitively converted to preserve their original character and appearance, they provide high-standard accommodation for families large and small.

Manor Farm is set in some of North Norfolk’s most attractive countryside, surrounded by green hills, woods and meadows. East Runton’s glorious beach, with its wide stretch of sand and rock pools, is just 15 minutes’ walk – or a quick drive – away. West Runton beach, right next door, is where a few years ago the fossil of a woolly mammoth was unearthed.

Visitors to East Runton have plenty to do. There are numerous cross-country walks, the beach, two pubs for a quiet pint, a village pond with ducks to feed, a children’s play area, shops and even a Greek restaurant. Nearby, Cromer and Sheringham have every kind of shop, restaurant and attraction imaginable, as well as their own wonderful beaches.

Towns, villages, beaches and attractions across North Norfolk are all within a short drive, with many on the doorstep. The choice for adults and children is enormous, as our North Norfolk page shows.

More about Manor Farm

Work on the 150-acre farm never stops for the family. Crops grown are sugar beet and malting barley, while the rest is down to grazing. Animals include 110 mule ewes, which have been crossed with a Texel ram to produce meaty lambs. Twenty Red Poll breeding cows and their calves. A Simmental bull, Hocus Pocus. Two ponies – Titch and Gerbil, plus donkeys – Jess, Dora and Donald. Pygmy goats – Maizie, Daisy, Lottie, Ludo and Uno!

A little history – from the family

Manor Farm was bought in 1919 by Erskine Byworth, the current owners’ grandfather, after he had endured – and miraculously survived – four years in the trenches on the Western Front.

Originally from London, after the war he found he just wanted a quiet, peaceful life. He had a small dairy herd and did a milk round in the village. In 1930, he introduced the family to tourism, accepting the first campers on a very informal basis. In the early 1960s, Erskine Byworth’s daughter and son-in-law took over running the farm. They phased out the cows and introduced breeding sows and laying hens.

At about this time the farm’s camping business became more ‘serious’ and organised, with the introduction of ‘thunderboxes’ – rather primitive loos! In 1975, after two purpose-built blocks with flushing toilets and showers were built, the campsite really began to expand.

The current generation – Phil, Gill and Fiona – came into the business in the early 1980s. The hens were sold, the pig herd increased and a flock of sheep established. By the late 1990s the pigs had become unprofitable and were sold.

For five years during the early 2000s the pig sheds were used to rear ducks – from day-old chicks to table birds, produced at the rate of 60,000 a year. The latest addition, made in the late 2000s, is a small suckler beef herd.